10 wks into program PT dies....

charebec65 · Mar 24, 2006

I'm sorry you had to go through it...especially so soon. I've lost one clinical patient as well...in my second term. It was no surprise but difficult nonetheless. Spent the weekend wondering if I could have done more but knew I coudn't have. I spoke with my instructor at length about it and she reassured me that I'd done all I could and considering I was a student, that the patient had even more one on one personal attention than would have been normally. We'd just come back from lunch and I'd just checked right before we'd left to eat. I'm told that eventually I'd learn to accept it.

Good luck...

WV_heart_RN · Mar 24, 2006

I am sorry about your patient. It will happen to you a lot through out the years. That sense of forebodding is what my instructors called " nurse's intuition". When you get that feeling listen to it.

At my hsopital if we are in a room and there is an emergency we can yank the callbell cord out of the wall and it turns on the emergency bell. See if where you are doing clinicals has something like this in place. That way you don't have to leave the patient to get help.

If you are even worried about how a patient is doing DO NOT hesitate to get someone right away. You are a student and the nurses on the floor will understand if it turns out not to be an emergency.

Don't let this get to you. Death happens and we can not always stop it. Just remember if you have a patient who is going to pass make them as comfortable as possible, talk to them if no one is there, and be patient with the family during the process. Sometimes we are just meant to be there.

lsyorke, RN · Mar 24, 2006

I lost my first patient the first day I got my license... talk about a bad first day!

mhull · Mar 24, 2006

I guess I just need a place to get this off my chest...I am trying to process my day at clinicals...my pt died this morning during my care...I knew that this would be a possibility but for some reason I never thought it would happen so soon....when I went in her room this morning I even had a thought about this pt dying but shrugged it off I hadn't even entered her room but I already had a sense of something wrong...I went in and she was breathing very hard and wheezing loudly...I couldn't get a BP on her and thought it was because she was so swollen...she was prespiring heavily and I just felt something wasn't quite right so I left to get someone else check on her by the time we got back she ws gone....it was surreal...I have never been to a funeral before nor have I ever seen a deceased person before....I am an intro student and wasn't expecting this but I do have some peace tonight about it I did what I knew to do and she was a DNR so I couldn't have done much of anything anyway...

Gosh I am sorry this happened to you. {{{{HUGS}}}} I have been doing this for a little over 3 years, and have seen several die. It does not get easier.

mtnmom · Mar 24, 2006

I am sorry that you had such a traumatic experience. It sounds like she went relatively peacefully, though, and for that you can be thankful.

One of my classmates in nursing school had a similar experience about our 2nd or 3rd week in clinical. It, too was an elderly lady and was DNR. I don't recall the exact circumstances but there was an order to straight cath q 4 or something like that...my classmate had just completed the cath with instructor over her shoulder checking her off and then the lady just stopped breathing. My classmate was shaken and talked about it for some time but the instructor repeatedly reassured her that it she did not cause the death and the outcome would have been the same.

In a way its better that your first experience with a death was peaceful rather than after a code being called.

bughouser · Mar 25, 2006

Promoting peaceful death is one of the most important and meaningful things we can do as nurses.

Tally, when you get a chance ... read notes on nursing by Florance Nightengale. For me it is a compass to my next intervention at work , often the words of Nurse Nightengale sooth and focus me.

I was in the right place the right time to teach a ten year old girl how to give herself insulin shots when I was a student years ago, somewhere between shooting saline into oranges to that 22 second hug her mother gave me on my last day of clinicals in peds, I found my place in the world.

Bug

PMHNP10 · Mar 25, 2006

I guess I just need a place to get this off my chest...I am trying to process my day at clinicals...my pt died this morning during my care...I knew that this would be a possibility but for some reason I never thought it would happen so soon....when I went in her room this morning I even had a thought about this pt dying but shrugged it off I hadn't even entered her room but I already had a sense of something wrong...I went in and she was breathing very hard and wheezing loudly...I couldn't get a BP on her and thought it was because she was so swollen...she was prespiring heavily and I just felt something wasn't quite right so I left to get someone else check on her by the time we got back she ws gone....it was surreal...I have never been to a funeral before nor have I ever seen a deceased person before....I am an intro student and wasn't expecting this but I do have some peace tonight about it I did what I knew to do and she was a DNR so I couldn't have done much of anything anyway...

sounds like you didn't panic and acted quite appropriately for a person with the amount of experience you have

I have a couple questions...was she a DNR? What, if anything would you do different if a similar situation presented itself in the future?

P_RN, ADN, RN · Mar 25, 2006

I grieve with you for your early experience.

My very first day of clinicals my patient had just passed-during report. I was devastated.

It sounds as if you did what you could. I like the pull the call bell tip. And there is always....the OH DARN (insert expletive)!!!! I NEED HELP NOW!!! Help always comes.

You will also find that sometimes patients will wait until no one is in the room to pass away. I like to think that they are in transition and are half way between existance here and heaven. No one dies alone though....I believe that the Lord is right there.

Over the years you will have patients who die and, patients who defy all odds and survive insurmountable odds. Remember you are there to care for them in whatever state they are in.

burn out · Mar 25, 2006

Welcome to nursing.This is the worst it gets just hang on you have yet to experience the good stuff.H